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OZ Systems Gears Up For HIMSS 2013 After Breaking Testing Records At IHE North America Connectathon In February

ARLINGTON, TX (rushPRnews) 03/01/13 — - OZ Systems, a leading provider of public health information systems and interoperable exchange, will participate in the 2013 HIMSS Interoperability Showcase next week (March 4-6) in New Orleans. OZ Systems’ presentation, in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), will show how public health sends critical care information to providers’ electronic health records and receives information from providers using health information technology standards-based solutions. The HIMSS event comes on the heels of a record-breaking showing for OZ Systems at the 14th Annual Connectathon NA (North America) held earlier this month.

Two themes predominate this year’s CDC-OZ partnership. The first is Maternal and Newborn Health, and the second is Biosurveillance Monitoring and Detection.

Vital Registration and Early Hearing Care Coordination

“At the upcoming HIMSS Showcase,” says Dr. Terese Finitzo, CEO of OZ Systems, “we’ll show how implementation of standards-based, electronic forms simplifies and facilitates timely reporting of important birth information to State Vital Registration after a baby’s birth.”

Additionally, OZ Systems will highlight its Newborn Admission Notification Information (NANI) message and Early Hearing Care Plan (EHCP) for the CDC Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI) program. NANI assists Public Health with an accurate denominator of hospital births and is a valuable tool in quality reporting. It is a Stage 2 Meaningful Use objective for hospitals to report the percentage of newborns screened for hearing loss before hospital discharge. The EHCP helps assure that critical early hearing care information on each newborn is delivered by public health or hospital Electronic Health Records (EHR) to a pediatrician’s EHR. OZ Systems is participating in a pilot project for the Public Health Data Standards Consortium and North Dakota’s EHDI program to demonstrate a real-life implementation showing an EHCP sent directly from the North Dakota EHDI information system to a provider’s EHR.

Biosurveillance Monitoring and Detection

OZ Systems information tools give providers an easy way to report to public health directly from their EHR, facilitating case reporting for infectious diseases. The approach is effective for other reportable conditions as well, including the capability to identify and report cancer cases to a cancer registry, a Stage 2 Meaningful Use objective.

“OZ Systems’ role in each [of the above] public health use cases will streamline reporting, reduce errors, increase compliance, and reduce reporting costs for hospitals and providers. Communication outside of a hospital’s walls and between organizations brings a new set of challenges for healthcare,” says Finitzo.

Connectathon attracted more than 500 software systems engineers from over 100 companies and organizations with the sole aim of making divergent health IT systems speak to one another in a common language. The average company participating in the event conducted 35 tests – OZ Systems performed at twice that level, completing five times the event average for number of tests per team member.

Organized by the non-profit association Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) USA, Connectathon serves as a forum for OZ Systems engineers and design teams to test their systems against a common communication profile developed by IHE for healthcare. The team then uses that profile to connect with other health IT systems, and the result is successful, mutually beneficial data-swapping among leading health IT professionals.

“It’s almost like ‘It’s Just Lunch’ of health IT,” said Ken Pool, M.D., Chief Operating Officer of OZ Systems. “The right people connect with the right people, and magic happens.”

About OZ Systems

By developing and implementing the world's smartest information technology platforms, OZ Systems bridges the information gap and helps children and families thrive through improved data accountability, performance measurement, quality certification, and electronic reporting for public health and early education.